Train wreck: ObamaCare jumps the tracks again

First, the Obama administration delayed for a year the ObamaCare requirement that all employers with more than 50 employees provide health insurance to their workers. By law, it was supposed to start Jan. 1, and there is nothing in the law that gives Obama the power to delay enforcement. But he did so unilaterally.

Now, the administration, again unilaterally in a 600-page filing in the Federal Register on Friday, has dropped the law’s requirements that insurance exchanges verify income and health insurance status. Instead the exchanges take an applicant’s word on it. The filing includes the phrase “without further verification” 11 times.

ObamaCare: You have to pass the bill to find out what the administration is incapable of doing. (Reuters photo)

The filing said an “Exchange may accept the applicant’s attestation regarding enrollment in an eligible employer-sponsored plan and eligibility for qualifying coverage in an eligible employer sponsored plan for the benefit year for which coverage is requested without further verification, instead of following the procedure in §155.320(d)(3)(iii).”

As for the promise illegal immigrants would not be allowed to use ObamaCare subsidies, the filing says, “Some commenters stated that states should have the option to request self-attestation of citizenship. Response: We clarify that our proposed rule gave states the option to require qualified  entities or qualified hospitals to request this information but did not require it.”

When the employer mandate was delayed most media bought the excuse that the companies weren’t ready to handle the “complexity of the requirements” of the law, as Deputy Assistant Treasury Secretary for Tax Policy Mark Mazur claimed.

But The Wall Street Journal figured out the truth: “He isn’t talking about business confusion and uncertainty, as damaging as those are. This is probably an admission that Treasury’s information technology isn’t ready to process and cross-check paperwork across the 5.7 million businesses in America …”

Nor does it seem the administration is able to audit the finances of the 30 million Americans who can apply for health insurance subsidies.

The Washington Post quoted a senior adviser at Manatt Health Solutions as saying, “As crunch time is coming, they’re just muddling through and figuring out short cuts.”

On the employer mandate delay, Nevada Sen. Dean Heller released a statement saying:

“The decision to delay implementing portions of ObamaCare further proves how flawed and how damaging the bill really is. From Day One, businesses warned Congress that this legislation would cripple job growth and make it even harder to succeed in an already challenging business environment.  Delaying the employer mandate is a clear admission that this is a deeply flawed law that cannot be implemented without fostering devastating uncertainty among the business sector.”

Nevada’s other senator, Harry Reid, even agreed with Sen. Max Baucus, who called ObamaCare “a huge train wreck coming down.”

“Max said, ‘Unless we implement this properly, it’s going to be a train wreck,’ and I agree with him,” Reid said.

 

Though it receives The Washington Post wire service, the local newspaper has failed to report on this latest ObamaCare debacle.